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| Downtown Atlanta on the way to the Georgia Aquarium. |
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| Stone Mountain! |
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| Robbie and I on the SkyRide to Stone Mountain. |
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Little Updates
The past week and a half has been a whirlwind with lots of memories made. Visiting with family was lots of fun, and now I can't believe we only have a few days before we're back in Kansas City for Christmas. Exciting! Here I just wanted to share some of my favorite photos from the past two weeks:
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Lost Weekend
I last wrote here on October 18, 2015. That was four-hundred and
fifteen days ago, but it feels like one thousand. Or possibly a
lifetime. Where do I even begin about how this year has gone for me?
So much has changed and shifted, I feel like a different person. I feel like I can safely say that I'm a grown up now. Granted, I'm a grown up who is still in the process of getting her shit together...but a grown up nonetheless. I said I don't know where to begin, but I guess I could begin by explaining the pause.
Very truthfully, I became disenchanted by blogging not too long after my last post. My life was still in huge shambles from the year prior and I didn't have the energy to stand up to the real embarrassment that I still felt about my marriage having ended with Sean, and then this new relationship with Robb (who I affectionately referred to as "R" in previous posts here.) It just felt like I was still really working through a lot of things that I didn't want to be public. But I didn't want to feel like I was pretending and hiding either. So I just stopped. I couldn't bring myself to delete the blog though. There is a lot with this blog and associated with this name "Lemonholiday" that I wanted to keep and possibly archive as a past journal of sorts. But I didn't. I decided to leave it in the dark for a while.
In the meantime, things were changing in my own life. Very soon after that last post, Robb received an incredible opportunity to move up in his company, and subsequently was offered a position in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember when he came home from work and told me, I was so happy for him, but really devastated too. I told him that I knew we would probably go our separate ways someday, but I wasn't ready and our relationship just started. I cried and tried to think of a plan. November and December were spent having a hundred conversations about what we should do. I was working about 50+ hours a week at my jobs, but almost all of the money was going towards my debts, so I still had a lot of saving to do. And things just weren't progressing very much for me emotionally in terms of dealing with Sean and I breaking up still. I loved Robb, but going through divorce haunted me in that I continued to feel very guilty and shameful about it.
Robb became convinced that I needed to move to Atlanta with him. The reasons he cited were that he wanted to be with me, he wanted to help me get on my feet, and it was clear that I needed something different.
I thought about it a lot. A whole month actually, and finally in January, I came to the conclusion that YOLO and I'm young and childless, what have I got to lose? I needed a change of scenery and some new experiences. So yes, I would go.
I think we felt a sense of relief after having made a decision and we began planning for the big move. We drove from Kansas City to Atlanta in a day, and arrived on January 29. Over the next few days, we explored and rode the train around the city and got to know our new neighborhood.
Everything was sweet in the first two weeks. We were excited and seemed pretty happy, everything felt uncertain and free, and I felt really good! ...emotionally at least.
But it seemed like as soon as we got there, I felt a little off. Like something wasn't right with me. I stopped eating and began to feel so tired all the time. I just wanted to lay in bed and not get up for days.
I would be lying if I said I didn't know what it was, but I knew.
I won't go into great detail because it wasn't really a good memory, but on February 9, 2016, Robb and I discovered that I was indeed pregnant with his baby.
So let's stop a second. I want to clear a few things up. First, this discovery was unhappy in general because neither of us had planned on this happening, obviously. We were terrified, and honestly really divided about our feelings. It's not something I wanted to share and blog about at that moment...this huge, terrifying thing engulfing my entire world for a while. It just wasn't really something I was willing to visit with others when I wasn't even sure how I felt yet. Over time, we did both become incredibly happy about our baby and about becoming parents, but at that time everything was so scary.
Second, the baby story is a blog post for a different day, which I will definitely do very soon.
But back to the timeline, after becoming pregnant...I uh...pretty much stayed that way for nine months, believe it or not. And on September 29, 2016, I gave birth to a baby boy named Samuel Augustine. And he's pretty much the greatest. (I'll go into more details about him and pregnancy and motherhood in future posts).
Since then, my life has pretty much been half about him, and half about self-growth and trying to figure my shit out. I think that one of the biggest things that having Samuel has taught me, is that I want to be someone. I have to be someone...become that person... in order to be the best mother I can be to my boy and to be the best I can be as an individual. So I've gone back to school to finish my degree, I've mended broken relationships, I've worked on myself actively everyday, and I will continue to do so.
As far as our relationship, Robb and I are a work in progress, as is common in many relationships. We're still in the process of figuring out where we are, but as far as where we're going...we honestly don't really care. Samuel is the light in our lives. He is like the sun that everything surrounds. He keeps us well and happy. ...As do our motivations and interests...but those are motivated by our sun too. Samuel is not the center of my world, but I'd be lying if said that my world doesn't revolve around him. At least while he's still small.
And I know that Robb feels the same. So in a nutshell, Robb is my partner in parenting, he is my best friend, and I love him. We're content with that and we love our tiny family, so there is nothing else to report.
The future is exciting with many changes in store as Samuel grows and changes everyday. But a big change we'll be going through next month is our big move back to Kansas City! Robb's job has been wonderful and he seems to enjoy it very well, but it requires a ridiculous amount of travel, which would leave me alone, raising our baby in Atlanta, with no friends or family. So Robb asked to be based out of KC so that Samuel and I can have support nearby, and they approved it. We leave at the end of January and I am really looking forward to being back. Atlanta has definitely been an experience, and while I probably could have stayed another year or two, I don't think it's the city for me.
And I've changed so much, it honestly feels really refreshing to go back to Kansas City. Like it's really is the beginning of this new chapter in my life. New characters, old characters, new settings and twists and turns! This is what stories are made of!
In the meantime, we're busy with the holidays as are many of you, undoubtedly. Samuel's aunts and cousins are coming into town tomorrow and Friday to visit and we have a lot of fun times planned, which I hope to share here. Next week my family will be in town to drive to Fort Benning and watch my little brother graduate from the Army. Then the weekend following that, our tiny family is flying back to Kansas City for a quick, three-day Christmas trip! So we have a lot planned in such a short time. And I am so excited! Having a little one to share everything with just makes it all the more wonderful.
I hope you'll read about it. I promise not to leave for a year again! More soon.
XO Kaleigh
So much has changed and shifted, I feel like a different person. I feel like I can safely say that I'm a grown up now. Granted, I'm a grown up who is still in the process of getting her shit together...but a grown up nonetheless. I said I don't know where to begin, but I guess I could begin by explaining the pause.
Very truthfully, I became disenchanted by blogging not too long after my last post. My life was still in huge shambles from the year prior and I didn't have the energy to stand up to the real embarrassment that I still felt about my marriage having ended with Sean, and then this new relationship with Robb (who I affectionately referred to as "R" in previous posts here.) It just felt like I was still really working through a lot of things that I didn't want to be public. But I didn't want to feel like I was pretending and hiding either. So I just stopped. I couldn't bring myself to delete the blog though. There is a lot with this blog and associated with this name "Lemonholiday" that I wanted to keep and possibly archive as a past journal of sorts. But I didn't. I decided to leave it in the dark for a while.
In the meantime, things were changing in my own life. Very soon after that last post, Robb received an incredible opportunity to move up in his company, and subsequently was offered a position in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember when he came home from work and told me, I was so happy for him, but really devastated too. I told him that I knew we would probably go our separate ways someday, but I wasn't ready and our relationship just started. I cried and tried to think of a plan. November and December were spent having a hundred conversations about what we should do. I was working about 50+ hours a week at my jobs, but almost all of the money was going towards my debts, so I still had a lot of saving to do. And things just weren't progressing very much for me emotionally in terms of dealing with Sean and I breaking up still. I loved Robb, but going through divorce haunted me in that I continued to feel very guilty and shameful about it.
Robb became convinced that I needed to move to Atlanta with him. The reasons he cited were that he wanted to be with me, he wanted to help me get on my feet, and it was clear that I needed something different.
I thought about it a lot. A whole month actually, and finally in January, I came to the conclusion that YOLO and I'm young and childless, what have I got to lose? I needed a change of scenery and some new experiences. So yes, I would go.
I think we felt a sense of relief after having made a decision and we began planning for the big move. We drove from Kansas City to Atlanta in a day, and arrived on January 29. Over the next few days, we explored and rode the train around the city and got to know our new neighborhood.
Everything was sweet in the first two weeks. We were excited and seemed pretty happy, everything felt uncertain and free, and I felt really good! ...emotionally at least.
But it seemed like as soon as we got there, I felt a little off. Like something wasn't right with me. I stopped eating and began to feel so tired all the time. I just wanted to lay in bed and not get up for days.
I would be lying if I said I didn't know what it was, but I knew.
I won't go into great detail because it wasn't really a good memory, but on February 9, 2016, Robb and I discovered that I was indeed pregnant with his baby.
So let's stop a second. I want to clear a few things up. First, this discovery was unhappy in general because neither of us had planned on this happening, obviously. We were terrified, and honestly really divided about our feelings. It's not something I wanted to share and blog about at that moment...this huge, terrifying thing engulfing my entire world for a while. It just wasn't really something I was willing to visit with others when I wasn't even sure how I felt yet. Over time, we did both become incredibly happy about our baby and about becoming parents, but at that time everything was so scary.
Second, the baby story is a blog post for a different day, which I will definitely do very soon.
But back to the timeline, after becoming pregnant...I uh...pretty much stayed that way for nine months, believe it or not. And on September 29, 2016, I gave birth to a baby boy named Samuel Augustine. And he's pretty much the greatest. (I'll go into more details about him and pregnancy and motherhood in future posts).
Since then, my life has pretty much been half about him, and half about self-growth and trying to figure my shit out. I think that one of the biggest things that having Samuel has taught me, is that I want to be someone. I have to be someone...become that person... in order to be the best mother I can be to my boy and to be the best I can be as an individual. So I've gone back to school to finish my degree, I've mended broken relationships, I've worked on myself actively everyday, and I will continue to do so.
As far as our relationship, Robb and I are a work in progress, as is common in many relationships. We're still in the process of figuring out where we are, but as far as where we're going...we honestly don't really care. Samuel is the light in our lives. He is like the sun that everything surrounds. He keeps us well and happy. ...As do our motivations and interests...but those are motivated by our sun too. Samuel is not the center of my world, but I'd be lying if said that my world doesn't revolve around him. At least while he's still small.
And I know that Robb feels the same. So in a nutshell, Robb is my partner in parenting, he is my best friend, and I love him. We're content with that and we love our tiny family, so there is nothing else to report.
The future is exciting with many changes in store as Samuel grows and changes everyday. But a big change we'll be going through next month is our big move back to Kansas City! Robb's job has been wonderful and he seems to enjoy it very well, but it requires a ridiculous amount of travel, which would leave me alone, raising our baby in Atlanta, with no friends or family. So Robb asked to be based out of KC so that Samuel and I can have support nearby, and they approved it. We leave at the end of January and I am really looking forward to being back. Atlanta has definitely been an experience, and while I probably could have stayed another year or two, I don't think it's the city for me.
And I've changed so much, it honestly feels really refreshing to go back to Kansas City. Like it's really is the beginning of this new chapter in my life. New characters, old characters, new settings and twists and turns! This is what stories are made of!
In the meantime, we're busy with the holidays as are many of you, undoubtedly. Samuel's aunts and cousins are coming into town tomorrow and Friday to visit and we have a lot of fun times planned, which I hope to share here. Next week my family will be in town to drive to Fort Benning and watch my little brother graduate from the Army. Then the weekend following that, our tiny family is flying back to Kansas City for a quick, three-day Christmas trip! So we have a lot planned in such a short time. And I am so excited! Having a little one to share everything with just makes it all the more wonderful.
I hope you'll read about it. I promise not to leave for a year again! More soon.
XO Kaleigh
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| Thanksgiving 2016 in Florida. |
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